The SEC Should Block Anthropic's IPO to Protect the Public

What it claims

Matt Scherer, co-author of the report "Brace for Impact," argues that Anthropic's registration statement meets the SEC's statutory bar for delay: a filing "on its face incomplete or inaccurate in any material respect." He gives three grounds. The prospectus has only unaudited results for the period of fastest claimed revenue growth. The largest future obligations sit in footnotes. And Anthropic keeps announcing new 11-digit commitments as the listing nears. His remedy is to hold the IPO until two consecutive audited quarters are filed, with all spending commitments fully disclosed.

Evidence

The balance sheet shows $96 billion in cash. Against that, Scherer cites $582 billion in non-cancelable compute commitments to five suppliers, most running into the 2030s. He argues these act as debt in a legal and practical sense even though they are off the balance sheet. He says it is unclear how much of the remaining roughly $300 billion will land on the balance sheet. He expects total commitments could reach $1 trillion or more by year end.

On infrastructure, Anthropic has committed to 15 GW of data center capacity. The company estimates it will eventually need 20 to 25 GW. Scherer puts the cost of a 1 GW data center at about $31 billion, before energy and cooling costs for training and inference.

On demand, he cites one study showing the share of Americans using AI at work fell from 46% in summer 2025 to 33% in summer 2026. He calls the commercial reception of Fable 5, released in summer 2026, "tepid."

On pricing, he describes a price war between Anthropic and OpenAI that began in summer 2026 and is still ongoing. He names further downward pressure from Chinese open-weights models and from models that run locally on phones and laptops.

On costs, he says local backlash has cancelled or delayed data center projects. He adds that the Iran War and supply-chain problems are raising operating costs.

Limits

This is an advocacy op-ed, not an analysis of the filing. The page does not quote the prospectus, give the revenue figures or the size of the Q3 slowdown, or name the studies behind the demand figures. The $31 billion per-GW figure is described as an estimate with no source. The case for systemic risk rests on Scherer's view that markets are overvalued and concentrated, and that an Anthropic listing would shift losses from insiders and VCs to 401(k)s and index funds. The page gives no data for this. It also says nothing about whether the SEC has acted on, or is considering, a stop order.